


Burning Pile

by sneezky



Series: Dream SMP Fics [1]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Abusive Parents, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Fire, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Maternal Mortality, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Miscarriage, Pyromania, Stillbirth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:40:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27837697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sneezky/pseuds/sneezky
Summary: Sapnap's not normal. Sapnap wants to set the whole world on fire.
Series: Dream SMP Fics [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2127213
Comments: 3
Kudos: 47





	Burning Pile

**Author's Note:**

> before you read, I would like to say that this definitely contains some triggering content, so PLEASE heed the tags! if any of those topics are sensitive to you I strongly advise that you don't read or (at the very least) proceed with caution!

He loves fire.

He’s not sure why, really. Well, he is, but he can’t really say it out loud. Doesn’t have the words to. He watches the flame flicker and dance, absolutely mesmerized. There’s something about the hot, gleaming glitter of the flame. He still can remember his mother’s words floating around in the back of his head, “If you play with fire, you're gonna get burned,” she had always scorned him. Little did she know that in years’ time, fire was the only thing that would be keeping him sane.

He can watch it for hours. Hours and hours on end, just feeling the waves and waves of heat hit his face, the smoke warming his lungs, till the sun comes up and he should probably stop. But he doesn’t stop, and once things begin to get unreal and Sapnap feels like he’s standing in some parallel world where it’s him and fire and nothing else but the beauty and warmth and familiarity of it, he sticks his finger in.

It shouldn’t be for more than a second, it really shouldn’t, and he knows that. But he can’t stop. The burn, that feeling that it’s real and it’s here and it’s now and Sapnap is really truly alive, and it’s too much. He can’t stop, won’t stop until he’s blistering again and he pulls back with a hiss and lets a curse slip past his lips as he stuffs out the match and returns the box back into his pocket. He’ll deal with the burn later, not that he needs to. He’s got scars covering every inch of his arms, but who really cares anymore? He wishes that he wasn't so fucked up, that maybe he could be normal.

But he's not. Sapnap's not normal. Sapnap wants to set the whole world on fire.

He thinks, maybe, if his mom was still around, things might have been different. She had always doted on him when he was small, keeping him safe and telling him what and what not to do. He remembers a time when he was small, no older than ten. He had been out in the yard, fiddling around with his dad’s flint and steel and a couple of sticks he had found lying around. He's alone, because all the kids nearby thought he was weird. He brings the flint down, hard, and there’s a spark.

He drops one of the sticks, now burning alight, and the fire begins to catch on the grass. Sapnap considers it. He thinks about letting it spread for a second, watching the flicker, the embers dancing and glowing and floating up into the sky. It feels nice. But he can’t. He's stomping it out when he hears his mother shrieking from the porch. She runs over and stomps out the rest of the fire, snatching the flint and steel from his hands with an apologetic look.

"What were you thinking?" She had yelled in his ear as she grabbed his wrist. The worry in her face had never quite left his mind.

"It was an accident,” He had insisted. That was the last time his mother had let him play unsupervised.

He’s twelve years old and he’s upset– because his mom is pregnant, has been pregnant for three months– got pregnant while the days were still long and the sun still burned. It feels like being replaced. His mother had always said she loved him, that he was her little panda. Cuddly and sweet one moment, then fierce and brave the next. His dad… well. They were never particularly close anyway. It didn’t matter, in six months, they’d have a new kid to care for.

He's not going to pretend it doesn't hurt, because it does.

At least his dad was sober for more than an hour a day now. Maybe his younger sibling might have a father that was actually there for them.

It wasn’t abnormal for women from their village to die during childbirth. The doctor of their village wasn’t particularly skilled, at any rate, so it really wasn’t a surprise. Still, it stung. And to make matters worse, it was all for nothing, because his little sister didn’t even survive. His dad starts to drink again, and he wishes he could too.

He tried giving up on fire. Really, he did. But he can’t. It’s only a matter before he finds himself huddled outside, the moon high in the sky as he fiddled with a match between his fingers. He feels relieved suddenly, calm, all remnants of his mother leaving him and being drawn into the flame instead, where they burn and burn and burn until there’s nothing left there at all. The match looks so pretty, bright white illuminated by a soft orange glow. He reaches out his finger, so, so close, watching that flame curl and dance and blow and he lets it touch him. He discovers that he barely minds.

He’s thirteen, and at home, things continue their ever more perilous downward spiral. When his dad isn’t paying attention to his whiskey, he’s scolding Sapnap.

One night is particularly bad. It starts with a lot of screaming. It was loud, almost too loud. He’s slamming his hands onto the counter and beginning to tear miscellaneous objects apart. Next, A bottle is thrown and shattered just over his shoulder. Sapnap moves forward, trying to calm his father’s alcohol induced rage. As he lays a hand on the man's shoulder, a fist collides harshly onto his jaw with a sickening crunch. It ends with the front door slamming, and he’s left alone in a room that seemed more empty and cold than it had ever been. He feels the dull throb of a bruise beginning to form, and his fingers twitch for something to do.

That night, he packs his clothes, books, and some food into a backpack and leaves, but not before he lets a lit match fall onto the floor. He makes sure it catches. He takes refuge in the comforting smell of smoke and ash as he watches his childhood home go up in flames. He doesn’t even feel bad.

He sleeps in an alleyway that night. Even out of the wind, the cold still manages to nip at his skin, but it hardly makes it through the cloud of buzzing numbness around his head. He thinks he should feel something. Anything. But these days, he rarely feels anything good unless it’s accompanied by a bright orange flicker. He goes on.

He can barely get to sleep, most nights. Ever so often, he catches a glance at himself through a shop window. Insomnia isn't a good look on him; Dark blue eyes, echoed by dark bags, and his skin taking on a pallid, sickly tone it never has before. His hair is a mess too. He learns that while he might not know how to cut it now that it’s grown too long, he can still see if he pushes it out of his eyes. He takes to tying it back with a makeshift bandanna, a piece of fabric he’d ripped off of one of his shirts. Not that he had many to spare. He finds himself wandering, never staying in the same village for more than a week at a time. People started to notice if he stayed any longer, and if you were living like him, that’s the last thing you would want.

He’s fourteen, and he’s frustrated. With the snow finally melting and giving way to spring, the rain comes and comes, and it just won’t stop coming. Everything is wet. The pavement, the dirt, the grass, the trees. He’s barely ever dry and that’s not even what gets to him. He can’t scratch his itch, and that’s really the whole problem. Nothing will light, no matter how hard he tries, and as far as his compulsion goes, a spark or two here and there aren’t really doing too much for him.

He doesn’t understand his problem yet, but he’s closer than he’d ever been before. He can feel his body tingling like there are a million tiny fire ants crawling beneath his skin and biting him, where he knows he needs to feel the lick of a flame. He can feel the twitch in his fingers and the ache in his bones and that godforsaken need. He pretends not to notice the trembling in his hands as he finally gets the tinder to light.

He’s still fourteen when the fires finally get out of control. Over the course of the last year, without a real home, he’d gotten fairly accustomed to the sleight of hand. Everyone’s used to people bumping into them, or brushing up against them. Especially in a crowded city street. You barely notice the wandering fingers and hands that slip themselves into your pockets. His mother surely wouldn’t be proud, but if she was still around, he wouldn’t be living like this to begin with. He always tried to reason with himself. It’s not morally wrong if he needs it to survive. It’s not a problem until you get caught.

Maybe his mind was wandering into some alternate universe where he’s not as deeply messed up as he thinks he is. As he pretends not to be. But as he moves to slide his hand down to snag a loose coin pouch, dangling from the belt in front of him, he’s taken immediately aback by the hand that roughly grabs at his wrist. His fingers twitch as he meets the eyes of the man he had just attempted to rob. He doesn’t know what to say, and he’s lucky the man let him off with just a warning. He’s acutely aware of the box of matches sliding around loose in his pant’s pocket.

It’s the only answer, in the end. It takes a few tries to successfully, but he’s no amateur. The warmth from the dancing flames comes in waves as they slowly take onto the log. He stays there, staring, until all he can feel is the hot, suffocating heat, and the burning, black smoke. He breathes in as deeply as he can without being choked out by the smoke. He watches as the flames dance and flicker in front of him. He lets it consume him. He doesn’t put it out, not even as he watches it crawl up the nearby tree. Not even as he watches it devour the rest of the greenery surrounding them. He stands outside the forest’s edge and watches the destruction in his own self-centred slow motion. It feels good. Addiction is a powerful thing, and he had never had the biggest grip on sanity, to begin with.

Fire is catching, and he’s ready to burn with it.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to get some feedback on this, I put a lot of work and research into making it the best it can be! Kudos and comments are always appreciated, thanks for reading :D


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